smr's Astrophotography

[smr]

Hi,

Thought I'd create a thread with my astrophotography images. Hope you enjoy.

Update - I now have a Youtube channel which I created for a bit of fun about my Astrophotography. If interested you can watch here (and subscribe if you want to!)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCptfsKNzgPrxE4SA3CKPmSQ/

Eastern Veil Nebula

Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Rosette Nebula

Rosette Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Bodes and Cigar Galaxy

Bodes and Cigar Galaxy by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

The Great Orion Nebula (and Running Man Nebula)

The Great Orion (M42) and Running Man (M43) Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Horsehead and Flame Nebula

HH & Flame Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Pleaides (Seven Sisters) Star Cluster

The Pleiades by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Cygnus, Milky Way

Cygnus by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Double Cluster

Double Cluster by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Messier 31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

Messier 31 - Andromeda Galaxy by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Pinwheel Galaxy

Pinwheel Galaxy by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

The Witches Broom Nebula

The Witches Broom Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

The California Nebula

California Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

NGC 6992 - Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

 

[smr]

Fantastic photos - a lot of detail; is your equipment rather specialist?

Thanks! Yes some of the equipment I use is dedicated to astronomy. I use a Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro mount which tracks the sky's rotation. Optics wise I have a William Optics Zenithstar 73 refractor telescope which is 430mm focal length, quite a wide view on some celestial targets but some fit nicely in the frame with my Canon 80D, which is my imaging camera. You can get them astromodified but I won't. Instead I want to buy a dedicated astronomy camera which has set point cooling, so less thermal noise, and is more sensitive to Hydrogen Alpha. On top top of my telescope I also have another smaller 50mm scope which is a guidescope. That enables me to take 5-10 minute or longer exposures by locking onto a star and sending impulses to my mount if it drifts during an exposure.

Yeah I'd like to see more info on the gear, software and technique!

I've a small telescope I've been meaning to buy an adapter for but it also needs a mount as it was a cheap job and the mount doesn't work correctly

Thanks. See above

I had a look at this for starting a hobby. Look at a book called 'making every photon count' which goes through a lot.

Without going mad I was looking at approx 2k. This was for a half decent scope, the mount (tracking one), a finder scope and then using my 7100 in bulb mode. Alas too much light where I am and an exposure can take 6 hours+ per night. Getting that in summer is hard, winter hobby.

You could bring that figure down with second hand stuff, the main expense is actually the mount. Do you want a self calibrating one or prefer the faff of doing it all yourself from the north star?

Thanks, that book is very good and was one of my first purchases. Definitely recommended if you are thinking about getting into astrophotography as it can be an expensive hobby, the book will guide you on what to expect.

My mount was in perfect condition second hand, they usually retail for £800 but I got mine for £450 or thereabouts. That's the most important thing to begin with, investing as much as you can into the mount. Camera wise I use a Canon 80D, and my telescope cost about £550.

 

[smr]

A photo I took last week of the great Andromeda Galaxy, one of my favourite Deep Sky objects, the Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31. The only galaxy visible with the naked eye under dark enough skies.

This is a spiral galaxy much like how our own galaxy is purported to look like if we could zoom out and see ourselves from a bird's eye view.

Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away from Earth and is on a collision course with our own galaxy, the Milky Way, travelling to us through Space and time at 140,000 kilometers per second. The collision will occur 4.5 billion years from now. The result will be a giant elliptical galaxy.

The spiral arms are being distorted by gravitational interactions with the two visible companion galaxies, M32 and M110.

5 hours worth of 3, 4 and 5 minute photos stacked together. Acquired with; Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod, Canon 80D, William Optics Zenithstar 73 Telescope, ASI 120MM Mini guiding camera, 50mm Starwave Guidecam, PHD2 and APT.

Processed in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

 

[smr]

Thanks very much guys.

A lot of time does go into getting these images, the longest data wise so far has been the Bodes and Cigar Galaxy which took 7 hours to photograph. Processing wise Andromeda, my latest version, took two days to finish.

Light pollution wise at home I have Bortle 5 skies, so semi-urban skies in a village. Where I took my latest Andromeda image was last week on Holiday, under Bortle 4 skies.

 

[smr]

Rural Rutland sounds great for astrophotography.

 

[smr]

How do you power for that long?

I power my mount and accessories off the mains in my house.

My camera I power with 2 batteries, if one's running low I can take it out and charge it up whilst using the other one.

 

[smr]

#4 at home getting to #2 an hour or so West but I'm up on Mull in a few weeks the majority of which is #1 (21.99 where I'm stopping).

Great photography smr.

Thanks. The sky would look stunning in Mull I'm sure, and astrophotography would be superb there.

 

[smr]

Hi all,

This is my longest astrophotography project to date.

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.

It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant, many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full Moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light years.

Integration:
15 hours, 50 minutes of total exposure time
ISO 200
No Darks (Dithered)
200 Bias Frames
25 Flats Per Session

Equipment:
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 73
Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod
Autoguiding Scope: Starwave 50mm Guidescope
Autoguiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
Camera: Canon 80D (unmodified)

Software:
PHD2 Guiding
Astrophotography Tool
Deepskystacker
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom

Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

I've just started an Astrophotography channel as well so if you want to see the final session you can here...

 

[smr]

Wow.

Thanks!

Very cool!

Very cool indeed!

Very nice. My favourite object is the Horsehead Nebula, not much to look at visually but I spent many hours viewing faint details.

Thanks. Yes I love the HH Nebula. Probably my favourite too.

That's a fantastic Veil with an unmodded camera. Nice round stars into the corners - flattener, cropped or both?

Thanks. Yes got the Z73 field flattener and it's cropped in quite a bit too.

Thanks for sharing the vid, it has answered a few questions that I had of how stuff worked.

Where roughly town wise are you? If you can pull pics like that from your back garden....... There might be hope for me
Would there be a big difference in quality if you dropped to ISO 100 and took longer?

I'm in a village quite away from the nearest city. I don't think there would be a massive difference in quality if I went to ISO 100.

 

[smr]

Hi,

Here's my image of the Triangulum Galaxy.

The Triangulum Galaxy is a Spiral Galaxy located roughly 2.73 Million Light Years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It's just the third largest member in the local group, behind our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and also Andromeda. The Triangulum Galaxy is believed to be a satellite galaxy of the Andromeda Galaxy owing to their proximity, velocity and interactions. Even though it's an astonishing 3 or so million light years away from Earth, it can be seen with the naked under eye under very good (dark and no light pollution) skies.


My image is the result of stacking 125 photographs together, some three minutes long and most five minutes in length. I then stacked them together in a program called DeepSkyStacker and processed the resulting stacked image in Adobe Photoshop CS6.


Acquired with the following equipment:

Imaging Camera: Canon 80D (stock, unmodified)
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 73
Mount: HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Modified
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini Autoguiding Camera
Guidescope: Altair Starwave 50mm
Image Acquisition Software: Astrophotography Tool
Guiding Software: PHD2 Guiding Software
Bortle 5 Skies
No Light Pollution Filter
125 Light Frames
100 Bias Frames
No Dark Frames (Dithered)
20 Flat Frames per (three) sessions


Thanks for looking.

The Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

 

[smr]

Meh, when you’ve seen one galaxy...

Awesome, as always.

Thanks. Yeah you'd be surprised though! This and Andromeda look quite similar but as you'll know there are so many varied galaxies.

Amazing!

Thanks!

Excellent work, bet you are loving the longer nights

Just curious but would a light pollution filter make that much difference?

Thanks. Yes the longer nights are welcome, might be colder but that's better for noise and being able to image from 6pm is great.

Where I am I don't think I need a light pollution filter for some targets, ie. ones that are quite high in the sky nearer the zenith. the winter constellations are quite low though, nearer the sky fog, so I think I will buy a decent light pollution filter for them - probably the IDAS D2, but it's not cheap, it's about £180, although it does help with LED lights and although I don't have any direct source of LED Lights there's that general sky glow which is more whiteish.

 

[smr]

Vlog on the Triangulum Galaxy image here

 

[smr]

Have you been upto anything recently?

I've got a couple of images coming soon.. perhaps before the end of the year.

Also made a new video on my gear and how it all connects etc. Oh yeah and a new rendering of Andromeda at the end of the video which you can see below too.

Messier 31 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

 

[smr]

Hi all,


A photograph of the Moon on Sunday night... 85 percent Waxing Gibbous.


Moon by Joel Spencer, on Flickr


Video on it here;

 

[smr]

Stunning pictures smr

I've just got an AstroMaster 130eq, and I know its a beginners scope, I hope to get something similar (although not as good )

Thanks very much. How are you getting on with your scope, it seems to have good reviews.

Stunning stuff mate

Spent a lot of time up the West Coast of the Highlands
Shame cameras weren't something I was into
As would have got some great shots
No idea what a bortle reading is
Lol
But I can assure you that it was really bloody dark up there.

Thanks ! Bortle scale;

These are nice, amazing work. For some reason i failed to acknowledge that even small telescopes have to expose for so long, bit of a durrr thought.

I remember stopping in the middle of Arizona at night, looking at the stars was in awe. Never imagined the light pollution here was that bad.

Yep the light pollution in most places in the UK isn't good really. Wales seems to have quite a bit of land free from light pollution.

Super pictures.

I have a Pentax 105SDP on an old school NEQ6 mount with some ATIK cameras. I have a concrete mount in the back garden

After a break of 5 years I’ve just finishing the rebuilding/updates of my control system (Kstars + INDI) only for a hospital op to pause play.

I might then get a chance to get some photo time.

Thanks, managed to get out with your gear?

Very nice. I’m looking at a new scope just now. How I miss my 22”, I don’t miss the hassle that it brings though.

22" wow, heavy I expect?

Stunning captures. Quite a bit of thought and work gone into the whole process. Well done indeed. Very fascinating subject.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks very much for looking!

That 'star' near the moon is Venus, isn't it?

Not Venus no as that was over to the West and the Star I was referring to was over to the East. It was bright but at the moment Venus is bright too.

 

[smr]

Hi smr, sorry for late reply.

Too be honest Im struggling with it.

I was hoping to put my camera in the scope and be able to take pics of what I see, but the images so far are blurry.

I did think I was doing something wrong and made a post asking for help lol

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/help-advice-with-telescope-camera-setup.18878554/

Just had a read, I think you'd be better off buying a short widefield refractor if you intend on doing Astrophotography. Will be much easier, something like a Skywatcher ED80 or the 72ED version is considered good VFM.

 

[smr]

Wow only just saw this but those are some beautiful pictures op.

Thanks very much.

 

[smr]

Hey guys,

Here's my latest image... Bodes & Cigar Galaxies, located in the constellation Ursa Major, and a whopping 12 Million Light Years from Earth.

Bodes & Cigar Galaxies by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Acquisition Details...

6 Hours 5 Minutes
81 x 120 Second Images
15 x 300 Second Images
67 x 240 Second Images

- | Equipment | -
Camera: Canon 80D (Unmodified)
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan Belt Modified)
Guide Camera: ZWO 120MM Mini
Guide Scope: Altair Starwave 50mm Guidescope

- | Image Acquisition | -
Astrophotography Tool
PHD2 Guiding Software

- | Processing | -
DeepskyStacker
Adobe Photoshop 2019

View: https://youtu.be/6qQjvKA118E

 

[smr]

Something to check when you're wondering why your scope isn't tracking too well...

That's a view of the Owl Nebula I've never seen before

 

[smr]

Hah!

Lovely job smr. There are some clear skies at the moment...

Thanks Yep it's been clear all day today, imaging tonight!